Dismantling
by Amberle-chan
Summary: Post-SR. Hutch realizes that he must take some things apart before he can move on with his life.


**Disclaimer**: I don't own Starsky and Hutch. But, oh, what sweet fantasies would be fulfilled if I did…

_Dismantling_

By Amberle-chan

We were sitting on the porch, drinking beer, on a beautiful, cool, late spring evening. The sun had just slipped beneath the horizon, and the sky's last dark magenta haze was slowly turning into a deep indigo blue. A few stars peered out from overhead. We sat companionably together in silence, just letting the events of the day seep through our minds and then slowly drift away.

It had been a good day. One of the handful in what has been the most horrifying, stressful, heartbreaking year of my life.

After nearly a year of putting the case together, endless weeks of testimony, and nine days of jury deliberation, the trial was over. Today, Friday, June 6, 1980, James Gunther had been sentenced to life in prison plus 50 years with no chance of parole.

Afterwards, after the court room had emptied out, I sat there alone and wept, finally letting myself shatter completely as I realized that it was over—truly over. Now all I had to do was live with the memories. I could almost feel Starsky's strong arms wrap around me and hear his quiet whisper in my ear. "That's okay, buddy. Just let it out."

I don't know how long I sat there before Dobey appeared by my side. "Come on, Hutch. I'll take you home."

Now as Dobey and I sit on the porch, I can hear Huggy puttering about in the kitchen, cleaning up after the celebratory feast. I offered to do it since Huggy had done all the cooking, but he had insisted on doing it himself. "You go and relax, Hutch," he said, sticking a beer into my hand, his head nodding in the direction of the porch, where Dobey had wandered out to just moments before. "Nobody deserves it more than you, my friend."

So I sat down in a chair next to my Captain, and we quietly drank our beers and contemplated the end of the day and the coming of night.

After a few more quiet minutes, Captain Dobey stood up and walked a few feet down the porch and leaned down on the railing, his eyes overlooking the soft, gentle slope of the ramp. He tipped his bottle of beer toward it. "You should take it down, Hutch," he said quietly. "Dismantle it. Never mind that it might be useful to the next person who might own this house. You don't need the reminder. It's just a symbol of everything that went wrong." He brought the bottle up to his mouth, finished off the last of the beer in it, and then set the empty bottle on the railing before crossing back across the porch toward me. He leaned down and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "It's time, son."

I looked up into the eyes of the man who had been more of a father to me than my own had ever been and saw the truth there. Dobey understood me too well at times, almost as well as Starsky. He knew I could spend the next few weeks, months, and years on this porch, stare down at that ramp, and wallow in my painful memories. He was right. It had to come down. I bowed my head and nodded.

"Cal and I will come over tomorrow and give you a hand," he offered, giving my shoulder another squeeze. He knew that it had to be done tomorrow or I would never do what I needed to do. He knew me too well.

Dobey straightened up, took his tweed cap out of his jacket pocket and put it on his head. "Have a good night, Hutch."

I saluted him with my beer. "Good night, Cap'n," I replied with a smile. "And thanks."

He nodded and climbed down the steps. A minute later, I heard him turn over the engine of his car and drive away.

The screen door swung open a few minutes later and Huggy stepped onto the porch. "You want me to stick around, Hutch?" he asked.

I shook my head and smiled up at him, once again immeasurably grateful for his unrelenting friendship over the past year. Huggy had seen me through the worst of it and then some. Nobody else had had the quite the knack to put me back together on those numerous days I broke. "Thanks a lot, Hug."

"No problemo, Hutch," Huggy answered with a smile of his own. "Don't forget about the pool game at my place tomorrow night."

"I won't. Have a good night, Hug."

"Night, Hutch."

Another minute later, I was alone. In the light leaking out from the kitchen window, I found myself staring down at the ramp and remembering.

In the weeks after Starsky's shooting, it had become painfully obvious that it would be quite impossible for him to climb the stairs to his apartment once he got out of the hospital. In all the spare time I had on weekends when I wasn't at his bedside, I spent searching for a single level house with easy access for a wheelchair. The closest thing I could find and afford was this one. Unfortunately, there was a set of seven steps up to the porch and no ramp. So I built one.

With practically no money left over after buying the house, I couldn't really afford a contractor to build one, so I took to haunting the various lumber yards around town until I found one owned by a former cop who was more than sympathetic to my cause. He let me have all the lumber I needed at half price. It took me weeks of hard work to build the ramp up from the driveway to the porch, but I had the time. No matter how many times I asked, the doctors could never tell me exactly when Starsky would be coming home. Dobey, Huggy, and a few other fellow officers had offered to help build the ramp, but I insisted on building it all on my own. It was my labor of love.

I stood up and walked over to the top of the ramp and gazed down its wooden planks.

It had long been unused. Dobey was right. I had to dismantle it. I had to move on.

I turned around and went back into the house.

XO SH XO

Dobey and Cal arrived a little after nine the next morning, both of them dressed in old jeans and tee shirts and armed with the instruments of destruction we needed to dismantle the ramp. After giving them both some coffee, we set to work.

Early on, Cal proudly announced that he had received another acceptance letter for college.

"Which one this time?" I asked.

"Stanford," he answered with a smile. "Now I've got four to decide on. Georgetown, Washington, Brown, and Stanford."

"Better decide soon," I commented. "September will be here before you know it."

Cal nodded in agreement and went inside the house to get us some water.

"Of course his mother wants him to go to Stanford," Dobey stated as he yanked another plank up and tossed it into the yard. The pile of wood there was growing steadily higher. "Closer to home."

"Bet you wouldn't mind that much, either, Cap," I stated.

He grinned and swiped his hankerchief against the back of his neck. "No, guess I wouldn't."

We were more than half done when Edith arrived around a little after noon, a picnic basket hanging from her arm. "Knew all my boys would get hungry from working so hard," she said as she stepped into the yard.

Rosey ran across the yard and threw her arms around me. "Ah, honey, I'm all dusty and sweaty," I told her.

"Don't care," she said firmly. I smiled and returned the hug.

We all sat on the porch and ate the sandwiches and salad that Edith had brought and talked quietly. Cal talked about the universities he'd been accepted to and Rosey teased him relentlessly about how she was going to take over his room once he was gone.

Two of the neighborhood boys, Jason and Billy O'Connell, drove past the house on their bikes, braking suddenly when they saw the pile of wood laying on the lawn. Jason got off his bike and shoved it into his brother's hands. "Uh, Mr. Hutchinson?" he asked as he approached the porch. "Whatcha gonna do with all that wood?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I haven't decided yet. Maybe just dump it. Why?"

"Oh, don't do that!" he exclaimed. "Wait right here! I'm gonna get my dad!"

He scrambled back to his brother and jumped on his bike and went flying back down the street. "Come on, Billy!" he yelled over his shoulder. His brother followed him.

The Dobeys all gave me puzzled looks. I shrugged again and took a sip of my soda.

Ten minutes later, the boys returned, both of them tugging their father into the yard. The boys were talking loudly and excitedly.

"Just look at it, Dad!" Billy said, pointing to all the wood in the yard and then what was left of the ramp. "It'll be enough for a tree house!"

"Yeah, Dad, you promised if we got enough…!"

"Me and my big mouth," I heard Frank O'Connell mutter as he climbed the steps to the porch. It was then that I remembered that the O'Connells had an enormous oak tree in their back yard. It would be the perfect tree for a tree house. "Hi ya, Ken."

I stood up and shook his hand. "You can have it all if you want, Frank," I told him. "The wood's less than a year old and the ramp was barely used. It's still in pretty good shape."

He glanced back over his shoulders to his boys, who were all smiles and pleading eyes. He shook his head once and turned back to me. "Never could break a promise to 'em," he said. "I'll come by with the pick up later on this afternoon. Maybe building a tree house will teach 'em how to use a hammer properly."

I nodded. "We should probably be finished around four or five."

"See ya then," he replied. He trotted down the steps as his boys cheered triumphantly. A moment later they were gone.

I smiled inwardly to myself. It felt good to know that all that lumber wouldn't go to waste after all.

Soon after both Edith and Rosey left, and Dobey, Cal, and I went back to work. We took a short break a little after three, but by four-thirty we were finished. The pile of wood in my yard was quite high. As promised, Frank arrived promptly at five, and we tossed all of the planks into the back of his pick up. I handed him a jar full of the nails we were able to salvage. "Let me know if you want any help, Frank," I offered. He nodded, giving me his thanks, climbed into the truck cab, and drove away.

Dobey and Cal left a few minutes later. As I walked them to their car, Dobey clapped me on the shoulder. "I don't want you near the station for the next week, ya hear me, Hutch?" he declared in his best gruff voice. "That's an order!"

"Thanks, Cap," I replied with a grin. "See ya in a week."

They drove away and I went back into the house. There was just enough time for a nap and a shower before I had to meet Huggy at the Pits.

XO SH XO

I spent the next three days being fairly lazy, and it felt good. I had barely taken any time for myself at all in the last year. I slept late, ran a few necessary errands, let the dust gather, and finally read one or two books that I had been wanting to read for a very long time.

By Wednesday morning, however, I was feeling a bit restless from all of my inactivity. I decided to replace the railing that I had cut down when I had installed the ramp. I had kept the pieces in the garage. I spent most of the morning nailing them back into place. After I was finished, I stepped back and surveyed my work. Except for a touch-up paint job, the railing looked like it had never been taken apart at all. I went back in the house, deciding that I could do the paint job after I ate some lunch.

XO SH XO

"You took it down."

I whirled so fast around at the sound of that voice that he had to jump backwards to avoid being splattered with the paint brush. His face wore an expression of surprised bafflement.

"Starsk! You came home early!" I cried happily. I set the paint brush down on the porch, walked over to him, and relieved him of the large duffle bag swinging from his shoulder, placing it over my own.

"Wanted to surprise you," he replied with a grin. "Ma's surgery went really well. She's gonna be just fine. Aunt Rosie arrived two days ago, so Ma decided that you probably needed me more than she did, so she sent me packing." His grin faded and suddenly his eyes grew dark and troubled as his head dipped down. "Just wished I coulda been here on Friday."

I laid my fingers against his cheek, lifting his face back up toward mine. "Shh, babe," I murmured gently, caressing his face. "We talked about this. Your mother is always going to be a million times more important than Gunther." I stepped forward and pressed a kiss against his forehead.

When I pulled back, his sapphire eyes studied my own for a moment before they strayed to the porch behind me. "So…you took it down."

"We don't need it anymore."

The smile he gave me could have brightened the entire universe. He reached out and enveloped me in a tight hug. "I missed you so much, Hutch."

"I missed you, too, buddy," I whispered into his dark curls as I returned his embrace. After reveling in his warmth for a long moment, I pulled away, sliding one arm around his waist as I led him up the stairs and back into the house. "Welcome home, Starsk."


End file.
